PSA: Amazon Raising Prime Annual Price to $119

rgMekanic

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Following a successful earnings call, where CFO Brian Olsavsky announced that Amazon had a $1.6 billion in net income for Q1, he dropped a bombshell for Amazon Prime subscribers. Starting May 11, Prime annual memberships will jump $20, from $99 a year to $119 per year.

I do love my Prime subscription, but the price increase makes it a little harder to justify each time. I'd love a $50 shareable subscription that was for shipping only, and omit the other benefits. Thanks to Etherton for the story.

"Since we increased the annual price of Prime four years ago both the value of Prime and the cost to offer it have increased significantly," Amazon said in a statement provided to TechCrunch.
 
Besides the crap load of stuff I have shipped to me all the time, the family has been using the digital services. This is a little less than $2 a month so not a huge deal.
 
This is a little less than $2 a month so not a huge deal.

The justification they are looking for... Meh, it's only $2. In reality it's $119.

That said I am not giving mine up either. It sucks but I use their shipping services and streaming.

Also, if you're a student (or have one in the home) you can get it for $59 a year for 2 years.
 
This is very easy to offset. Make sure that a certain portion of your purchases are done via eBay and Newegg. The savings on 3 or 4 items will cover this increase and even possibly the entire $120 dollars for Amazon Prime. The only very slight downside is that you will have to wait 3 to 7 days vs 2 or 3 days. Make sure you only buy from sellers that offer free shipping via first class postal. In case some of you didn't know, Amazon is not the cheapest game in town. Don't even get me started on Walmart. They are def not the cheapest player in town but that's an argument for another time.

Lot of you guys are using Amazon exclusively and at the end of the year you've over paid on items and tax to the tune of several hundreds of dollars to possibly thousands of dollars. My friend Chris and I figured he over spent $2,300+ last year VS what he could have spent on Newegg and eBay. $2300? That's a new PC or a Vacation. At the very least you guys are throwing away a brand new video card for free by just changing your shopping habits!

Here is one example - Samsung 850 EVO 1TB 2.5-Inch SATA III Internal SSD

eBay: $269 free shipping no tax

https://tinyurl.com/y8z98mao

Amazon: $279 + tax of around $22+ dollars, so around $300 dollars. That's a $30 dollars savings.

https://tinyurl.com/ycwaojt5
 
I'm actually kinda offended. So they had a good fiscal quarter thanks to customer base ...To me it feels like "hey bump it up a little and see if they roll over and pay it, they'll likely justify it in their brains somehow"

I won't renew. That and if enough people (esp long time members) do the same maybe they'll have different prime offerings to become competitive again.

Best buy price matches Amazon, screw shipping costs, I'll just go there.
 
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Lol I already don't sub and only makes that happening in the future even smaller.
The bigger thing to watch for is if they raise the free shipping limits again :/
 
lol with 100,000,000 Prime subscribers...thats an extra $200million a month for them. They have some decent shows to stream. Wonder if this is to help pay for the LOTR Show.
 
Sucks to see them raise the price, but I won't cancel, I order to much off Amazon. I've been leaning heavily on Subscibe & Save lately, and saving a good buck with all the stuff I get through there. Cat food & litter, vitamins, toiletries for both the wife and I, adds up quick. I have 5+ items every month, which knocks off 15%, and makes these items cheaper than anywhere else. Big ticket items I usually still check Newegg and Ebay for tax purposes, but using Amazon for the sort of things I used to buy at Wal-Mart means I'm paying tax either way, and with Amazon it's usually cheaper, with the huge bonus of not having to set foot inside a Wal-Mart.
 
This is very easy to offset. Make sure that a certain portion of your purchases are done via eBay and Newegg. The savings on 3 or 4 items will cover this increase and even possibly the entire $120 dollars for Amazon Prime. The only very slight downside is that you will have to wait 3 to 7 days vs 2 or 3 days. Make sure you only buy from sellers that offer free shipping via first class postal. In case some of you didn't know, Amazon is not the cheapest game in town. Don't even get me started on Walmart. They are def not the cheapest player in town but that's an argument for another time.

Lot of you guys are using Amazon exclusively and at the end of the year you've over paid on items and tax to the tune of several hundreds of dollars to possibly thousands of dollars. My friend Chris and I figured he over spent $2,300+ last year VS what he could have spent on Newegg and eBay. $2300? That's a new PC or a Vacation. At the very least you guys are throwing away a brand new video card for free by just changing your shopping habits!

Here is one example - Samsung 850 EVO 1TB 2.5-Inch SATA III Internal SSD

eBay: $269 free shipping no tax

https://tinyurl.com/y8z98mao

Amazon: $279 + tax of around $22+ dollars, so around $300 dollars. That's a $30 dollars savings.

https://tinyurl.com/ycwaojt5

The issue with that is, eBay and Amazon are different entities with different levels of buyer protection.

Not only that, but eBay purchases aren't going to be "tax free" (which in fact they are not, but people aren't filing Use Tax) forever. Currently, legislative efforts are pressing towards every online retailer charging Sales Tax, and auction sites will be forced before long. I think that benefit is fleeting, plus if you get audited will get you in hot water anyway.

Overall, not much benefit to the ebay purchase, I think.

On topic, I won't cancel either. But I'm not going towards a $200 sub/year unless pricing in the Pantry gets better. Right now the pricing of spices etc is stupid.
 
Here is one example - Samsung 850 EVO 1TB 2.5-Inch SATA III Internal SSD

eBay: $269 free shipping no tax

https://tinyurl.com/y8z98mao

Amazon: $279 + tax of around $22+ dollars, so around $300 dollars. That's a $30 dollars savings.

https://tinyurl.com/ycwaojt5

Those aren't even the same product. The eBay version is the 850, the Amazon version is the 860.

At any rate, Amazon's return policy is more than enough to justify a few extra bucks here and there, and if the price is genuinely better somewhere else well, it isn't like Bezos has a gun to my head.
 
I'm like most people, I resisted signing up for Prime for years, but there was a show I wanted to watch a couple of years ago and I caved in. Now, after two years, I use Amazon for too many things to quibble over an extra couple bucks a month.

I'd like to say 'Fuck Amazon' and 'Fuck Jeff Bezos', but I use it, so I guess it has value to me.
 
If I didn't share the membership shipping benefits between family members, I wouldn't renew. It's worth it spread out, but I couldn't justify 119. But I do know I will place a lot more individual item orders and alexa add on item work around orders a lot more this year.
 
I buy a lot of stuff on amazon - but I don't like them ticking the prices up - especially when they could cut this crap out and save everyone money
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_original_programs_distributed_by_Amazon



case in point -- hmmm Amazon pays $250 million for rights to make LOTR prequel, and amazon subscribers pay 18% more to the tune of $200 million.

Coincidence?

amazon.PNG




I have a Costco membership as well and you don't see them ticking the prices up.

Between Costco, Amazon, Ebay, Newegg and the local grocery store - pretty much all my shopping needs are covered. It would be hard to give up my amazon subscription - and I won't do it over $20...but keep raising it and see what happens.
 
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Easily worth $10/mo for shipping option for all the stuff my house receives. I mean, you can argue about a few dollars here and there, but generally speaking it's the convenience that draws me. Everything is available all the time, usually at market price, with 2 day shipping. Just...easy.

As for taxes. Use tax is a thing.
 
Taxes are not a thing if you simply shop elsewhere. Why spend more when you don't have to. You have choices.
 
This is the second price increase in a year? If they keep it up, they'll be just as bad as Comcast when I only had basic cable: Increase the price twice a year for the same content. I don't really use anything other than the shipping benefits, I can get around that by: A) Spending more than $30 per order (not difficult), B) having some patience and using whatever free shipping deal is offered, or C) stop being lazy and finding deals elsewhere.

It sounds like them packing things into Prime is increasing the price, which is why I don't have cable TV (which I don't watch) with my internet service. If this is going to become the norm, it'll be too simple to just dump Prime and shop elsewhere.
 
*PHEW* I'm an employee for a school and just signed up for the student discount. $49 annually until 2023 :)
 
This is very easy to offset. Make sure that a certain portion of your purchases are done via eBay and Newegg. The savings on 3 or 4 items will cover this increase and even possibly the entire $120 dollars for Amazon Prime. The only very slight downside is that you will have to wait 3 to 7 days vs 2 or 3 days. Make sure you only buy from sellers that offer free shipping via first class postal. In case some of you didn't know, Amazon is not the cheapest game in town. Don't even get me started on Walmart. They are def not the cheapest player in town but that's an argument for another time.

Lot of you guys are using Amazon exclusively and at the end of the year you've over paid on items and tax to the tune of several hundreds of dollars to possibly thousands of dollars. My friend Chris and I figured he over spent $2,300+ last year VS what he could have spent on Newegg and eBay. $2300? That's a new PC or a Vacation. At the very least you guys are throwing away a brand new video card for free by just changing your shopping habits!

Here is one example - Samsung 850 EVO 1TB 2.5-Inch SATA III Internal SSD

eBay: $269 free shipping no tax

https://tinyurl.com/y8z98mao

Amazon: $279 + tax of around $22+ dollars, so around $300 dollars. That's a $30 dollars savings.

https://tinyurl.com/ycwaojt5
Yeah, but how many times have you been dicked by an ebay seller & not gotten your money back?
 
I'm actually kinda offended. So they had a good fiscal quarter thanks to customer base ...To me it feels like "hey bump it up a little and see if they roll over and pay it, they'll likely justify it in their brains somehow"

I won't renew. That and if enough people (esp long time members) do the same maybe they'll have different prime offerings to become competitive again.

Best buy price matches Amazon, screw shipping costs, I'll just go there.
This is how I feel. That whole "the cost of prime" bullshit after a nice massive earnings announcement just smacks of Martin Shkreli-esque price gouging.
 
Lol I already don't sub and only makes that happening in the future even smaller.
The bigger thing to watch for is if they raise the free shipping limits again :/
Sadly, I had no idea what it cost yearly, which makes me wonder if $2 a month is worth it.
 
Prime is a loss leader for them. The real money comes in the form of purchases since you are locked in from prime. I tend to get a quarter of the year free anyway on prime from late packages and having no qualms about yelling at them.
 
Besides the crap load of stuff I have shipped to me all the time, the family has been using the digital services. This is a little less than $2 a month so not a huge deal.
$10/month for the whole subscription - that's the way you should look at it. Is that really worth it?

Keep in mind you get free shipping if you order more than $25 and there are hundreds of other competitors out there (www.froogle.com). ...and Prime Video is fairly craptacular.
 
$10/month for the whole subscription - that's the way you should look at it. Is that really worth it?

Keep in mind you get free shipping if you order more than $25 and there are hundreds of other competitors out there (www.froogle.com). ...and Prime Video is fairly craptacular.
If the free shipping was two day I’d say no. But the free shipping takes 3-7 days. Two days is short enough I’ll usually wait without worries. 7 days? Not so much.
 
Following a successful earnings call, where CFO Brian Olsavsky announced that Amazon had a $1.6 billion in net income for Q1, he dropped a bombshell for Amazon Prime subscribers. Starting May 11, Prime annual memberships will jump $20, from $99 a year to $119 per year.

I do love my Prime subscription, but the price increase makes it a little harder to justify each time. I'd love a $50 shareable subscription that was for shipping only, and omit the other benefits. Thanks to Etherton for the story.

"Since we increased the annual price of Prime four years ago both the value of Prime and the cost to offer it have increased significantly," Amazon said in a statement provided to TechCrunch.
$119 makes it harder for me to want to keep the membership. I enjoy the ease of most returns and shipping is usually great, but I don't benefit from anything else. I don't use the digital services because Google does it all better. Haven't watched anything on Prime, music is a joke compared to Google Play (and that has a family package that I take advantage of). I order a lot, so shipping might still be more expensive without the membership. Time to review my purchase history. Ugh.
 
*PHEW* I'm an employee for a school and just signed up for the student discount. $49 annually until 2023 :)
Yeah I did that too a couple years back, figured what the hell... class of 2022 or something, can't remember what I put down.
 
Since I've had my kid I've shifted over almost all my household and baby items to Amazon's subscription service, which gives 10% to 20% off all items which were already priced low. It saves me $200+ a month over going to the super market. Don't love the hike, but still nothing compared to the savings for me.

Not to mention the Amazon Visa card I just signed up for that pays another 5% back on all Amazon purchases.

Say what you want about Amazon, but they know how to create value.
 
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